Simon Kelner in the i: "I simply don’t understand where the publication of the BBC’s top earners gets anyone. It’s an exercise in embarrassment, instituted by a supine government in response to pressure from Rupert Murdoch and the Daily Mail. It is intrusive, grubby and, in fact, pretty meaningless, and plays only to the baser, voyeuristic instincts of the general public, while providing ammunition for the commercial and political enemies of the BBC."
Séamus Dooley, acting NUJ general secretary in a statement: "The NUJ represents a vast number of talented, underpaid and badly resourced members within the BBC. Use of the word 'talent' to describe just the top layer of workers is misleading in that every programme depends on a dedicated and talented staff, many of whom earn a fraction of that paid to the top stars...I would warn against allowing understandable anger at the level of top pay to be used as a weapon against the BBC or the principle of public service broadcasting by those with a political or commercial agenda."
Les Hinton on Twitter: "#BBC salaries huge but everyone in private media knows they're not outrageous. Gender pay gap is only shocker."
David Yelland on Twitter: "Anti-BBC front pages no surprise. Triples all round for John Whittingdale! I bet he'll even get dinner!.....I earned more than all the news and current affairs BBC staff on that list - other than Presenters- as Editor of The Sun. In 2003."
Piers Morgan on Twitter: "I'd like to apologise to all fellow journalists I scooped on BBC salary story. I can't help being this good at my job, unfortunately."
Piers Morgan on Twitter: "I'm also truly shocked at the size of these BBC salaries. They get out of bed for THAT?"
HuffPost reports: "Piers Morgan has been branded a 'bellend' after tweeting the pay of the BBC’s highest-paid stars before a pre-arranged embargo. The list of 109 names of those earning above £150,000 was given to journalists earlier this morning with the understanding it would not be published until 11am. Morgan ignored the embargo and began tweeting the list at 10:08 am."
Alastair Stewart on Twitter: "#BBCpay Breaking an embargo, with stuff we've all been sitting on for hours, is not a 'scoop', it is naff, delusional & unprofessional."Beth
Beth Rigby on Twitter: "@piersmorgan is utterly disgraceful to break embargo when hacks gathered at BBC for press conference & respected lock-in. Shame on him."
Ex-Number 10 communications director Katie Perrior in The Times [£] on Theresa May's former joint chief of stahff Fiona Hill: "I once stopped her going to join a bunch of political journalists at the back of the plane on the way home from a foreign trip, dressed head to toe in flannelette pyjamas and two bottles of red wine down. In hindsight, I should have bloody well let her go."
Ross Barkan in the Guardian on the closure of local newspapers in the US: "Decades ago, when small cities and towns had viable newspapers, even the most conservative readers could rail against the liberal monoliths on TV and in New York while consuming their local dailies. Reporters weren’t villains: they were neighbors, and the editor-in-chief a town fixture. We can hate most what we don’t know. If a newspaper doesn’t operate near you for a hundred miles and you only see a live journalist if one swoops in during a presidential election – or one never shows up at all – you only know what you read about on Facebook or watch on Fox News. There is no lived reality to draw from. There are only the images and the hate, symbols and distortion."
Royal Charter backed press regulator IMPRESS reports: "An arbitrator [Clive Thorne] has made an award of damages in the first legal dispute to be resolved under the IMPRESS arbitration scheme. Dennis Rice [ former investigations editor of the Mail on Sunday], the claimant, contacted IMPRESS to make a request for arbitration to settle a legal claim of defamation, harassment and malicious falsehood, arising from two tweets sent out from the Byline Media Twitter account on 6th March 2017...An award was finalised on 6th July and published on 13th July. In the award, Mr Thorne upheld the claim in part. He found one of the two tweets to be defamatory and ordered that damages of £2,500 be awarded to Mr Rice."
MediaGuido comments: "Try not to laugh too hard. The Leveson-compliant press regulator Impress has made its first adjudication, ruling against Byline Media, one of its most vocal defenders. Byline, the conspiracy theory site with tinfoil mad-hatter Peter Jukes as CEO, was found guilty of defaming tabloid journalist Dennis Rice and ordered to pay him £2,500 in damages. The irony is just too delicious. Byline signed up to Impress as part of its campaign against the tabloid press."
Peter Preston in The Observer: "The huge majority of papers backing Ipso may calculate that, as before, the sheer vehemence of their case against state-endorsed regulation will be enough to see off any renewed challenge. But no one should bank on it...There’s nothing more stupid and dangerous than sitting back and defining press freedom by whoever happens to win, or not win, an election."
John Harris who runs the Cavendish Press news agency in Manchester, quoted by Press Gazette : “Journalists are of course entitled to follow up news stories filed by others but as long as they do their own work on it such as getting extra background, extra quotes and extra pictures. Bashing the original version around a bit doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. Lifting court copy wholesale is not only irresponsible journalism but unethical and should have no place in today’s post-Leveson newsgathering operations."
The Society of Editors in a statement following concerns the House of Lords may once again attempt to force through Section 40 in the provisions in the Crime and Courts Act 2013 by tagging it on to other legislation: “Any further attempt during the next Parliament to force through costs provisions would rightly be judged as an appalling misuse of powers. It is absurd that while our elected, and unelected, officials are quick to condemn attacks on press freedom in Turkey and elsewhere, some remain steadfastly determined to push through legislation on their doorstep that seeks to punish those who are innocent and fine them for telling the truth. It has now been more than three years since Section 40 has been wielded over the newspaper industry like the sword of Damocles and it is time that parliament united in recognising the genuine threat that the legislation poses and takes steps to repeal it with immediate effect.”
Sir Ray Tindle handing over control of his Tindle Newspapers group to his son, Owen, quoted by Press Gazette: "I see a greater need for our local press now than I have ever seen in my 80 or so years connected with this business. Yes, local papers will survive. Local news in depth is what people need. Names, faces and places. There is no doubt about it – sufficient demand is still there. Local detailed news is in a category of its own. It has survived many years. It will live forever."
Theresa May, according to the Sun, after Donald Trump claimed he hadn't been getting great coverage over his proposed visit to the UK: “Well, you know what the British press are like.”
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